Mohamed Salah marked his return from injury with a goal as Liverpool secured a crucial win against Brentford to maintain their lead at the top of the Premier League table.

Liverpool's Darwin Nunez opened the scoring with a stunning chip, followed by Alexis Mac Allister poking in a second goal at the Gtech Community Stadium. Salah, who had been sidelined with a hamstring injury sustained during the Africa Cup of Nations, made his presence felt with a well-taken goal.

Despite Ivan Toney pulling one back for Brentford, Liverpool sealed the victory with Cody Gakpo's late strike. The win briefly extended Liverpool's lead at the top to five points, but Arsenal's later 5-0 victory over Burnley narrowed the gap back to two points.

However, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp faced injury concerns as Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota were both substituted before halftime, adding to an already lengthy injury list that included Nunez, who was substituted at halftime.

"We have to see how much it costs us - we don't know that yet," Klopp said of the injuries.

"Curtis got a knock on the lower part of his shin, or above the ankle. We will see what that means. It was what he felt, but he was not 100 per cent sure. That Curtis cannot play on tells you that it must be something because he would have played on at all costs.

"Diogo looks probably the worst; I didn't see it back but I heard the pictures didn't look great as well, so we have to see there.

"Darwin, we took off because he felt really a little [something] but that was obviously today enough to immediately push the brake and that's what we did, so we took him off."